Noble House

  Linc Bartlett and Orlanda were closer now, swaying more than dancing, her head soft against his chest. One of her hands was gently on his shoulder, the other held by his, cool to his touch. He had one arm almost around her, his hand resting on her waist. She felt his warmth deep in her loins and almost absently, her fingers caressed the nape of his neck and she eased a little closer, drawn by the music. Her feet followed his perfectly, so did her body. In a moment she felt his stirring and then his length.

  How do I deal with him tonight? she asked herself dreamily, loving the night and how perfect it had been. Do I or don’t I? Oh how I want…

  Her body seemed to be moving of its own volition, now even closer, her back slightly arched, loins forward. A wave of heat swept her.

  Too much heat, she thought. With an effort she pulled herself back.

  Bartlett sensed her leaving him. His hand stayed on her waist and he held her against him, feeling nothing but her body under his hand, no undergarment. So rare. Just flesh under the gossamer chiffon … and more warmth than flesh. Jesus!

  “Let’s sit for a moment,” she said throatily.

  “When the dance ends,” he muttered.

  “No, no, Linc, my legs feel weak.” With an effort she put both hands around his neck and leaned back a little, keeping herself against him but letting him take some of her weight. Her smile was vast. “I may fall. You wouldn’t want me to fall, would you?”

  “You can’t fall,” he said, smiling back. “No way.”

  “Please …”

  “You wouldn’t want me to fall would you?”

  She laughed and her laugh thrilled him. Jesus, he thought, slow down, she’s got you going.

  For a moment they danced, but apart, and that cooled him a little. Then he turned her and followed her close and they sat down at their table, lounging on their sofa, still aware of their closeness. Their legs touched.

  “The same, sir?” the dinner-jacketed waiter asked.

  “Not for me, Linc,” she said, wanting to curse the waiter for his ineptness, their drinks not yet finished.

  “Another crème de menthe?” Bartlett said.

  “Not for me, truly, thanks. But you have one.”

  The waiter vanished. Bartlett would have preferred a beer but he didn’t want that smell on his breath and, even more, he did not want to spoil the most perfect meal he had ever had. The pasta had been wonderful, the veal tender and juicy with a lemon and wine sauce that was mouth tingling, the salad perfect. Then zabaglione, mixed in front of him, eggs and Marsala and magic. And always her radiance, the touch of her perfume.

  “This is the best evening I’ve had in years.”

  She raised her glass with mock solemnity. “Here’s to many more,” she said. Yes, here’s to many many more but after we’re married, or at least engaged. You’re too heady, Linc Bartlett, too tuned in to my psyche, too strong. “I’m glad you’ve enjoyed it. So have I. Oh yes, so have I!” She saw his eyes slide off her as a hostess brushed by, her gown low cut. The girl was lovely, barely twenty, and she joined a group of boisterous Japanese businessmen with many girls at a corner table. At once another girl got up and excused herself and went away. Orlanda watched him watching them, her mind now crystal clear.

  “Are they all for hire?” he asked involuntarily.

  “For pillowing?”

  His heart missed a beat and he glanced back at her, all attention. “Yes, I suppose that’s what I meant,” he said cautiously.

  “The answer’s no, and yes.” She kept her smile gentle, her voice soft. “That’s like most things in Asia, Linc. Nothing’s ever really no or yes. It’s always maybe. It depends on the availability of a hostess. It depends on the man, the money and the amount she’s in debt.” Her smile was mischievous. “Perhaps I shall just point you in the right direction but then you’d be up to no good—because you fascinate all pretty ladies, big strong man like you heya?”

  “Come on, Orlanda!” he said with a laugh as she aped a coolie accent.

  “I saw you notice her. I don’t blame you, she’s lovely,” she said, envying the girl her youth but not her life.

  “What did you mean about debts?”

  “When a girl first comes to work here she has to look pretty. Clothes are expensive, hairdressing expensive, stockings, makeup, everything expensive, so the mama-san—that’s the woman who looks after the girls—or the nightclub owner will advance the girl enough to buy all the things she needs. Of course in the beginning all the girls are young and frivolous, fresh like a first rose of summer, so they buy and buy and then they have to pay back. Most have nothing when they begin, just themselves—unless they’ve been a hostess in another club and have a following. Girls change nightclubs, Linc, naturally, once they’re out of debt. Sometimes an owner will pay the debts of a girl to acquire her and her followers—many girls are very popular and sought after. For a girl it can be well paying, if you can dance, converse and speak several languages.”

  “Their debts’re heavy then?”

  “Perpetual. The longer they stay the harder it is to look pretty so the more the cost. Interest on the debt is 20 percent at the very least. In the first months the girl can earn much to pay back much but never enough.” A shadow passed over her face. “Interest builds up, the debt builds up. Not all patrons are patient. So the girl has to seek other forms of financing. Sometimes she has to borrow from loan sharks to pay back the patron. Inevitably she seeks help. Then one night the mama-san points out a man. ‘He wants to buy you out,’ she’ll say. An—”

  “What does that mean, to buy a girl out?”

  “Oh that’s just a nightclub custom here. All the girls have to be here promptly, say eight, when the club opens, neat and groomed. They have to stay till 1:00 P.M. or they’ll be fined—and fined also if they are absent or if they’re late or not neat and not groomed and not pleasant to the customers. If a man wants to take a girl out by himself, for dinner or whatever, and many customers just take the girls for dinner—many even take a couple of girls for dinner, mostly to impress their friends—he buys the girl out of the club, he pays the club a fee, the amount depends on the time left before closing. I don’t know how much she gets of the fee, I think it’s 30 percent, but what she makes outside is all hers, unless the mama-san negotiates for her before she leaves. Then the house gets a fee.”

  “Always a fee?”

  “It’s a matter of face, Linc. In this place, which is one of the best, to buy a girl out it would cost you about 80 HK an hour, about $16 U.S.”

  “That’s not much,” he said absently.

  “Not much to a millionaire, my dear. But for thousands here, 80 HK has to last a family for a week.”

  Bartlett was watching her, wondering about her, wanting her, so glad that he didn’t have to buy her out. Shit, that’d be terrible. Or would it? he asked himself. At least that way it’d be a few bucks, then in the sack and move on again. Is that what I want?

  “What?” she asked.

  “I was just thinking what a rotten life these girls have.”

  “Oh not rotten, not rotten at all,” she said with the immense innocence he found shattering. “This is probably the best time in their lives, certainly the first time in their lives they’ve ever worn anything pretty, been flattered and sought after. What other kind of job can they get if you’re a girl without a great education? Secretarial if you’re lucky, or else in a factory, twelve to fourteen hours a day for 10 HK a day. You should go to one, Linc, see the conditions. I’ll take you. Please? You must see how people work, then you’ll understand about us here. I’d love to be your guide. Now that you’re staying you should know everything, Linc, experience everything. Oh no, they think themselves lucky. At least for a short time in their lives they live well and eat well and laugh a lot.”

  “No tears?”

  “Always tears. But tears is a way of life for a girl.”

  “Not for you.”

  She sighed and put her hand on his arm. “I??
?ve had my share. But you make me forget all the tears I’ve ever had.” A sudden burst of laughter made them look up. The four Japanese businessmen were hunched down with six girls, their table loaded with drinks and more arriving. “I’m so happy I don’t have to … have to serve the Japanese,” she said simply. “I bless my joss for that. But they are the biggest spenders, Linc, much more than any other tourists. They spend even more than the Shanghainese, so they get the best service even though they’re hated and they know they’re hated. They don’t seem to care that their spending buys them nothing except falsehoods. Perhaps they know it, they’re clever, very clever. Certainly they have a different attitude to pillowing and to Ladies of the Night, different from other people.” Another burst of laughter. “Chinese call them lang syin gou fei in Mandarin, literally ‘wolf’s heart, dog’s lungs,’ meaning men without conscience.”

  He frowned. “That doesn’t make sense.”

  “Oh but it does! You see Chinese cook and eat every part of fish, fowl or animal except for a wolf’s heart and a dog’s lungs. They’re the only two things that you cannot flavor—they always stink whatever you do to them.” She looked back at the other table. “To Chinese, Japanese men’re lang syin gou fei. So is money. Money has no conscience either.” She smiled a strange smile and sipped her liqueur. “Nowadays many mama-sans or owners will advance money to a girl to help her learn Japanese. To entertain, of course you have to communicate, no?”

  Another bevy of girls went past and she saw them look at Bartlett and then at her speculatively and look away again. Orlanda knew they despised her because she was Eurasian and with a quai loh customer. They joined another table. The club was filling up.

  “Which one do you want?” she asked.

  “What?”

  She laughed at his shock. “Oh come now, Linc Bartlett, I saw your wandering eye. Is—”

  “Stop it, Orlanda!” he said uncomfortably, a sudden edge to his voice. “In this place it’s impossible not to notice.”

  “Of course, that’s why I suggested it,” she said immediately, forcing her smile steady, her reactions very fast and again she touched him, her hand tender on his knee. “I picked this place for you so you could feast your eyes.” She snapped her fingers. Instantly the maître d’ was there, kneeling politely beside their low table. “Give me your card,” she said imperiously in Shanghainese, almost sick with an apprehension that she hid perfectly.

  At once the man produced what looked like a playbill. “Leave me your flashlight. I’ll call you when I need you.”

  The man went away. Like a conspirator she moved closer. Now their legs were touching. Linc put his arm around her. She directed the pencil light at the playbill. There were photographs, portraits of twenty or thirty girls. Underneath each were rows of Chinese characters. “Not all these girls will be here tonight, but if you see one you like we’ll bring her over.”

  He stared at her. “Are you serious?”

  “Very serious, Linc. You don’t have to worry, I’ll negotiate for you, if you like her, after you’ve met her and talked to her.”

  “I don’t want one of these, I want you.”

  “Yes. Yes I know, my darling, and … but for tonight, bear with me, please. Play a little game, let me design your night.”

  “Jesus, you’re something else!”

  “And you’re the most marvelous man I’ve ever known and I want to make your night perfect. I can’t give you me now, much as I want to, so we’ll find a temporary substitute. What do you say?”

  Bartlett was still staring at her. He finished his drink and did not taste it. Another appeared out of nowhere. He drank half of it.

  Orlanda knew the chance she was taking but felt that either way she would draw him tighter to her. If he accepted he would be beholden to her for an exciting night, a night that Casey or any quai loh woman would never in a thousand years have offered to him. If he refused, then he would still be grateful for her generosity. “Linc, this is Asia. Here sex is not Anglo-Saxon mumbo-jumbo and guilt-ridden. It’s a pleasure to be sought like great food or great wine. What’s the value of one night to a man, a real man, with one of these Pleasure Ladies? A moment of pleasure. A memory. Nothing more. What has that to do with love, real love? Nothing. I’m not for one night or for hire. I felt your yang.… No please, Linc,” she added quickly as she saw him bridle. “About yang and yin things we cannot lie or tell falsehoods, that would destroy us. I felt you and I was filled with joy. Didn’t you feel me? You’re strong and a man, yang, and I’m a woman, yin, and when the music is soft and … Oh, Linc.” She put her hand around his and looked up at him beseechingly. “I beg you, don’t be bound by Anglo-American nonsense. This is Asia and I—I want to be everything a woman could be for you.”

  “Jesus, you really mean it?”

  “Of course. By the Madonna, I would like to be everything that you could desire in a woman,” she said. “Everything. And I also swear that when I’m old or you no longer desire me I will help arrange that part of your life to be joyous, openly, freely. All that I would ask is to be tai-tai, to be part of your life.” Orlanda kissed him lightly. And then she saw the sudden change in him. She saw the awe and his defenselessness and she knew she had won. Her glee almost swamped her. Oh Quillan, you’re a genius, she wanted to shout. I never believed, truly believed, that your suggestion would be so perfect, I never believed that you were so wise, oh thank you thank you.

  But her face showed none of this and she waited patiently, motionless.

  “What does tai-tai mean?” he asked throatily.

  Tai-tai meant “supreme of the supreme,” wife. By ancient Chinese custom, in the home the wife was supreme, all powerful. “To be part of your life,” she said softly, her whole being shouting caution.

  Again she waited. Bartlett leaned down and she felt his lips brush hers. But his kiss was different and she knew that from now on their relationship would be on a different plane. Her excitement soared. She broke the spell. “Now,” she said as though to a naughty child, “now, Mr. Linc Bartlett, which one do you choose?”

  “You.”

  “And I choose you, but meanwhile we have to decide which one you’re going to consider. If these aren’t to your liking we’ll go to another club.” Deliberately she kept her voice matter-of-fact. “Now what about her?” The girl was lovely, the one he had looked at. Orlanda had already decided against her and had chosen the one that she would prefer but, she thought contentedly, very sure of herself, the poor boy’s entitled to an opinion. Oh I’m going to be such a perfect wife for you! “Her résumé says she’s Lily Tee—all the girls have working names they choose themselves. She’s twenty, from Shanghai, speaks Shanghainese and Cantonese and her hobbies are dancing, boating and …” Orlanda peered at the tiny characters and he saw the lovely curve of her neck. “… and hiking. What about her?”

  His eyes went to the picture. “Listen, Orlanda, I haven’t been with a whore for years, not since I was in the army. I’ve never been much on them.”

  “I understand completely and you’re right,” she told him patiently, “but these aren’t whores, not in the American sense. There’s nothing vulgar or secret about them or what I propose. These are Pleasure Ladies who may offer you their youth which has great value, in exchange for some of your money which has almost none. It’s a fair exchange, given and received with face on both sides. For instance, you should know in advance how much she should receive and you must never give her the money directly, you must only put it into her handbag. That’s important, and it’s very important to me that your first encounter be perfect. I’ve got to protect your face too, an—”

  “Come on, Orlan—”

  “But I’m serious, Linc. This choosing, this gift from me to you has nothing to do with you and me, nothing. What happens with us is joss. It’s just important to me for you to enjoy life, to know what Asia is, really is, not what Americans think it is. Please?”

  Bartlett was floundering now, all his w
ell-tested signposts and guides shattered and useless against this woman who fascinated and astounded him.

  He was drunk with her warmth and tenderness. All of him believed her.

  Then, suddenly, he remembered and his inner self screamed caution. His euphoria fled. He had just remembered to whom he had mentioned how much he loved Italian food. Gornt. Gornt, a couple of days ago. Talking about the best meal he had ever had. Italian food with beer. Gornt. Jesus are these two in cahoots? Can’t be, just can’t be! Maybe I told her about the same meal. Did I?

  He searched his mind but could not remember exactly, all of him rocked but his eyes kept seeing her waiting there, smiling at him, loving him. Gornt and Orlanda? They can’t be in cahoots! No way! Even so, be cautious. You know almost nothing about her, so watch out for chrissake, you’re in a web, her web. Is it a Gornt web too?

  Test her, the devil in him shouted. Test her. If she means what she says then that’s something else and she’s from outer space and just as rare and you’ll have to decide about her—you’ll only have her on her terms.

  Test her while you’ve the chance—you’ve nothing to lose.

  “What?” she asked, sensing a change.

  “I was just thinking about what you said, Orlanda. Shall I choose now?”

  CHAPTER FIFTY-FIVE

  11:35 P.M.:

  Suslev was sitting in the half-dark of their safe house at 32 Sinclair Towers. Because of his meeting with Grey he had changed the rendezvous with Arthur to here.

  He sipped his drink in the dark. Beside him on the side table was a bottle of vodka, two glasses and the telephone. His heart thumped heavily as it always did when he was waiting for a clandestine meeting. Will I never get used to them? he asked himself. No. Tonight I’m tired though everything has gone beautifully. Grey’s programmed now. That poor fool, driven by hatred and envy and jealousy! Center must further caution the leadership of the BCP about him—the trend’s too vulnerable. And Travkin, once a prince, now nothing, and Jacques deVille—that impetuous incompetent—and all the others.